Apollo Hospitals, Bilaspur sets a benchmark in Cardiac Surgery

Date:12 Jul 2009

A 14 years old child with CTGA, VSD, PS undergoes Double switch heart surgery, becoming a rare case to be successfully operated for Congenitally Corrected Transposition of Great Arteries (CCTGA) with VSD and Pulmonary Stenosis.

The cardiac team at Apollo Hospitals, Bilaspur has written a new chapter in the history of Pediatric Heart Surgery in India. A 14-year-old male child from Bilaspur has become a rare case to be successfully operated for Congenitally Corrected Transposition of Great Arteries (CCTGA) with VSD and Pulmonary Stenosis. This is a very rare cardiac anomaly and is found in less than 1 percent of all babies born with congenital heart disease. The cardiac team at Apollo Hospitals, Bilaspur, led by Dr. Ratan Das, Senior Consultant Cardiac Surgeon successfully completed this eight hour surgery on the child without any complications. The name of the operation is Double Switch Procedure (combined Rastelli's and Senning's procedure). This is the first Double Switch procedure performed in entire Eastern India. In India, this rare procedure is performed only at major cardiac centers of Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore.

Master Dipesh Srivas, who is from a very poor family of Bilaspur was born as a blue baby and was having breathing difficulty since birth. The family had no money to take the child to big cities where this type of complex surgery is possible. Last year the Chief Minister of Chattisgarh has started a ""Bal Hriday Suraksha Yojna"", a project by which the Government of Chattisgarh started paying the expense of treating children with congenital heart disease.

The diagnosis by the doctors at Apollo Hospitals revealed that the baby was born with Corrected Transposition of Great Arteries with ventricular septal defect and severe Pulmonary Stenosis. In this case the pumping chambers of the heart (ventricles) are reversely positioned so as the main blood vessels arising from the heart (Aorta and Pulmonary artery), along with large hole between the ventricles and a narrowing of the Pulmonary artery. Children born with this kind of defect might also have abnormal electrical conduction system, which means they might be highly susceptible to a complete heart block.